![]() However, their most important source was Sir Thomas More's unfinished History of King Richard III, which was written around 1513. These historians had themselves drawn on material written by the early Tudor scholar, Polidore Vergil. The period of the Wars of the Roses and the reign of Richard III was amply covered in Hall's Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancastre and York (1548) and in Holinshed's Chronicles of England (second edition 1587). The chronicles of Edward Hall and Raphael Holinshed provided Shakespeare with material for his history plays. ![]() Since Greene expected his readers to recognise the allusion, Henry VI Part 3 must have been well-known on the London stage by 1592, the year in which the pamphlet was published.įollowing on as it does from the Henry VI trilogy, Richard III was probably written in 1592-3.Īt around the same time, Shakespeare was writing Titus Andronicus and the long narrative poem, Venus and Adonis. Richard III built on the success of Shakespeare's Henry VI Part 3, in which Richard first takes centre stage as a fully-fledged villain.Ī memorable line from Henry VI Part 3 was parodied by Robert Greene in his pamphlet, Greene's Groatsworth of Wit. ![]()
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